Andy Beshear: Bevin stand on case 'shameful'

FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Bevin administration Department of Insurance asked the Kentucky Supreme Court on Tuesday to reject Attorney General Andy Beshear's attempt to revive the state's defense of a 2012 consumer protection law — a request that Beshear later said was "utterly shameful."

Beshear said in a news release that the Bevin's Department of Insurance's position in the case "has now moved from merely abandoning the nearly 10,000 Kentuckians (who he said would benefit from the law) to actively trying to harm them."

The Department of Insurance responded with a statement late Tuesday that defended its decision to drop the case and said that Beshear "has decided to politicize this issue."

The issue is a 2012 law that requires life insurance companies to periodically check their lists of policyholders against the Social Security Death Index and then take reasonable steps to pay their families if they have died.

Subsidiaries of Kemper Insurance challenged the law in Franklin Circuit Court. And under former Gov. Steve Beshear (father of Andy Beshear), Kentucky's Department of Insurance defended the law and won in Franklin Circuit. But that ruling was reversed by the Kentucky Court of Appeals which said that the law could only be applied to policies sold after the law was passed in 2012.

Steve Beshear's Department of Insurance appealed that ruling and the case was about to be argued before the Kentucky Supreme Court last month when Bevin's Department of Insurance dropped its defense of the law. Andy Beshear then quickly moved to intervene and defend the law before the high court.

In its 15-page response to Beshear filed Tuesday, the Bevin insurance department noted the attorney general's office had never been a party to the case and argued that Beshear did not meet the legal requirements for intervening at this late stage.

"The Attorney General asks this Court to re-open a dismissed case, add a new party, and reconsider its Order. There appears to be no precedent for such action," the Department of Insurance's response states.

The Insurance Department said that it agreed with the unanimous Court of Appeals ruling that the law could not be applied to policies sold before 2012 and it moved to drop its defense of the case "to avoid imposing, based upon unclear language, substantial new requirements on insurance companies, the costs for which may be built into rates for all Kentuckians."

Andy Beshear said in his news release, "If the Attorney General is not allowed to intervene, the Commonwealth and its citizens have lost this important case, and have been denied any representation." Beshear said he will "do everything I can" to help the life insurance policy beneficiaries "but also to hold the Department accountable."

The Kentucky House or Representatives last week passed a bill intended to clarify the 2012 law expressly stating that the law's provisions apply to policies sold before 2012. That bill passed the House 84-0 and is now awaiting action in the Senate.